Recession only beginning for some families

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release, Sunday May 2, 2010

Recession only beginning for some families.

There is no respite from the recession for hundreds of families in the lower North Island living in dire material hardship, as Salvation Army social service centres struggle to meet their needs.

The Salvation Army’s food banks, budgeting, emergency housing and other community services are running at, or close to, full capacity, says The Salvation Army’s head of community services in the lower North Island Major Wendy Barney.

She says families where one breadwinner has lost their job or had their working hours reduced and have found themselves in a sometimes intractable spiral of debt are the new faces of New Zealand’s poor. And they are coming to The Salvation Army’s doors with increasingly complex financial problems, she says.

“Some may say the recession is over but for many of these people their recession has just started. The people who come to us do so as a last resort; they have hit the bottom and many are often deeply depressed.”

Major Barney says local centres have struggled to meet demand as food donations fall and public donation from 2009 have been exhausted. The Salvation Army today launches its annual Red Shield Appeal to build a cash reserve that will enable centres to provide social services during the coming year.

Since the start of the recession in the first quarter of 2008, the number of food parcels distributed in the region has risen from a modest 864 per quarter to 1791 in the three months to March 2010 – a rise of 107 per cent. The number of families seeking food rose 81 per cent to 1337 in the same period.

The Salvation Army works with families to solve the problems behind their requests for food, so the rising stream of families arriving at social service centres puts increasing pressure on the Army’s budgeting, counselling, emergency housing, parenting and addiction services.

In the Wellington region, demand from families in Hutt Valley and Porirua has put considerable strain on resources.

In the year to March, the number of families seeking food aid in Porirua rose 83.3 per cent to 630 and the number of food parcels distributed jumped 99.4 per cent to 985.

In Upper Hutt and Hutt City, the number of families seeking food aid in the year to March 2010 rose 63 and 27 per cent respectively, bringing the total number of valley families seeking food to 869.

More than 1130 Palmerston North families were provided with 1880 food parcels in the year to March.

The Red Shield Appeal runs from May 3-9.

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